It feels like forever since Sean Penn led a Hollywood picture. Not since his one-scene appearance in Licorice Pizza in 2022 has Penn shown off his star power. Dakota Johnson, however, has been all over the place recently. Whether it’s a critical failure like Madame Web or an indie hit like Am I OK?, 2024 has already been quite a busy year for Johnson. With the release of Daddio, Johnson and Penn command the screen in a tender drama about the complexities of life and feeling stuck.

Daddio follows Girlie (Johnson), who enters a cab at the New York airport and befriends the driver Clark (Penn). As the night progresses, the two gradually open up to each other about their places in life and what led them to where they are, discovering new aspects about themselves through honesty and empathy. 

The film takes place almost entirely in a taxi cab. While this filmmaking choice can come off as “gimmicky”, writer/director Christy Hall does an excellent job of making the film innovative and refreshing. Whether it is projecting online conversations on the screen or cutting to wide shots of the city, Hall makes the environment feel open and inviting, similar to how the characters are feeling throughout the film. 

Even though Daddio has its fair share of wide shots, I found the most compelling elements in the cinematography to be in the close-ups of Sean Penn and Dakota Johnson. Whenever the camera cuts to a close-up, it lingers on the shot for a lengthy period, allowing for the actors to draw you into their performance. The film’s visual style isn’t reinventing itself, but its execution was always incredibly impactful. 

Penn and Johnson have excellent chemistry with each other, bouncing back and forth in a manner that feels like a genuine conversation. The film will have minutes with no dialogue between the two leads, which brings a layer of realism that is absent from most one-location films. It can be difficult to build a relationship between people of two different generations and personalities, but Penn and Johnson’s attention to detail and the empathy they bring to their characters bring their complex characters to life.

I found Girlie and Clark’s character progression to be effective and well-executed, but I found myself more attached to Girlie overall. For most of the first half, I found Clark to be incredibly condescending. He makes assumptions about Girlie and her life decisions, which I found off-putting, making it difficult for me to emotionally invest myself in him. Even though the film discusses Clark’s patronizing nature, it didn’t touch upon it enough to resolve my issues. 

The movie touches upon many debatable topics, such as sex, familial issues and relationships. While I enjoyed how explicitly the film tackles the ideas, I wish there was more of a dramatic conflict. Most of what is discussed in the film is meant to be viewed as agreeable with one single takeaway. Surely there is more beneath the surface that the film could have talked about. There is one moment where Girlie and Clark discuss how differently men and women strive for love. Girlie and Clark have wildly different viewpoints on the matter, but instead of discussing it further, the conversation ends. Moments like this made me wish the movie made more of an effort to have the characters conflict more with each other. 

I can’t say that I have many personal experiences inside a taxi cab, but there were moments when I found the film’s depiction of a cab ride to be too unrealistic. Within the first thirty minutes of the film, the two leads are talking about the inappropriate terms they call their sexual partners. Even if I had known someone for months on end, it would be hard for me to talk about something as intimate as what Girlie and Clark discussed in their first interaction. 

In the film’s final moments, the true intentions of Clark come into place. The blend of Penn’s emotionally charged performance and heavy-hitting lines about the roadblocks of life was incredibly powerful. After 90 minutes of life-sharing and trauma-dumping between the two protagonists, Penn’s delivery and Hall’s script were the warm hug that perfectly ended the film. 

Despite my issues with the script, I found the overall experience of Daddio to be worthwhile due to Penn and Johnson’s committed performances and its unique depiction of the ups and downs of life. Some may be put off by the film’s slow pace and plotless screenplay, but the experience is worthy of the theatrical runtime. It is nice to see Sean Penn act his heart out again.

Daddio will be released in theaters nationwide on June 28.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• None